Bought by a Millionaire by Heidi Betts Read Free Book Online Page A

including corn chips or ice cream at three in the morning.”
    She smiled, touched by his concern and obvious excitement about becoming a father. “Thank you, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that. Not for several more months, at least.”
    She saw him swallow and his jaw tighten. His fingers clenched and then released where his arms rested atop his legs.
    â€œRight. We’ve got a ways to go, I guess.”
    â€œSeven more months, to be exact,” she said as the limo pulled to a stop outside her apartment building.
    It was hard to believe she was pregnant at all. But here she was, two months along, carrying a child for a man she hardly knew.
    Her mother would die if she knew, even though Shannon was doing this for all the right reasons. And though she had no intention of not visiting her mother at Meadow Lark for the duration of her pregnancy, she had decided not to tell her mom what she was doing until she absolutely had to. Shannon figured that would be about the time she began to show and her mother started to guess.
    Her mother wouldn’t understand, insisting there were other ways to get the money they so desperately needed. But since the deed was already done and a child was most certainly on the way, she also knew her mother would be accepting of her decision. Her only real complaint might be that she wouldn’t have contact with her only grandchild after it was born.
    Shannon was having a few problems with that herself. But a deal was a deal. She’d known from the beginning that it would be difficult to give up a child who had grown inside her for nine months, but she also knew Burke would be a good father. He would love his child and give it everything he or she could ever need, while there was no way Shannon could afford to support a baby at this point in her life. Even if she could imagine falling in love with it, given half the chance.
    Burke’s driver opened her door and offered his hand to help her out. Burke exited from the other side and began removing pizza boxes.
    â€œLet me carry these up for you.”
    â€œOh, no. There’s no way I can eat all of those,” she said, standing on the sidewalk and watching the boxes pile up one after another on the trunk of the sleek black car.
    â€œIsn’t there anyone else you can give them to?” She turned to the chauffeur who stood at her elbow, waiting to see if she needed anything else. “You’ll take some, won’t you?”
    The man glanced at Burke, as though looking for permission to answer her question. When Burke didn’t seem opposed, he said, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll see they don’t go to waste.”
    Burke seemed to be fighting a smile as he lifted the lids on a couple of boxes, picked one he liked and carried it around the car to where she stood.
    â€œYou can put the rest of the pizzas back in the car, Davis. And take them home with you this evening, if you like. I’ll see Ms. Moriarty to her apartment.”
    She opened her mouth to tell him he didn’t need to accompany her, but closed it again when she recognized the determined expression on his face. “Thank you,” she said simply, before turning and heading inside.
    It wasn’t easy for her to accept Burke’s generosity and protectiveness. She was too used to fending for herself, as well as caring for others.
    All her life, she’d been the responsible one. Her father had left when she was a baby, and her mother had worked two jobs for as long as Shannon could remember to provide for them. As an only child who often ended up alone, she’d learned to both look out for and entertain herself. And when her mother had become ill, she hadn’t thought twice about doing whatever was necessary to see that she got the proper housing and medical care.
    That determination—and, she admitted, desperation—had led her to become a surrogate mother for a man who apparently wanted to see to